The City: PuzzleLocked Book 1

Alastair woke in a boat making its way toward an island.

Who and what was that!?

He fast-forwarded his way through the manacles so he could talk with Flor. As the manacles fell to the ground, he realized that he was still wearing glasses that didn’t want to stay on his face and that he hadn’t received a rage increase, even though he felt his internal rage intensify. If I didn’t change, chances are Flor is still ‘Muscles’ today.

Sure enough, she was overly short and thin with wavy red hair. They both walked toward the prison tavern, both likely as confused as possible. Alastair slipped his hand into Flor’s as they walked. She gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

They sat silently as Horace brought their food and beer. They then continued eating in silence. Finally, after pushing the empty bowl of slop away, Flor said, “What now?”

Alastair continued in silence for another moment. “I’ll ask the question that neither of us knows the answer to; who and what was that?”

“I couldn’t tell if it was scripted or if that was maybe another player, playing maliciously.”

“I haven’t even gotten that far in my analysis.”

“Should we make assumptions?”

“As much as I want to, I’d like to get to your question of ‘what now’ first.”

“Go on,” she said.

He lingered on that for a moment. “I don’t think I can without the assumption piece, yet. So, first, I didn’t get a rage notification and we’re in the same human suit that we were yesterday. I infer that we have to make it to midnight without dying for either of those things to occur.”

“I’ve got nothing to dispute that. Why midnight?”

“Limits of the simulation? That’s a question I’d normally ask you,” he said.

“Perhaps some feedback loop that should be iterative, or a developer forgot to put a ‘day plus one’ incremental counter into the system. Or maybe it’s there, but some other variable prevents it from running.”

Alastair realized that it wasn’t being stuck in the game that bugged him so much but that the day repeated. I might be happy to be stuck here forever with you, as long as the days progress. “Do you think there is a way to fix it?”

“To get in the code? From inside the game? Um. I expect it’s feasible but near impossible. Then, see the source code, find the error, and fix it. That’s an additional layer of feasibility but improbability on top.”

“Let’s shelf that one then,” he said. “What do we do about other players? Should we try to find them? Are they experiencing this as an infinite loop also?”

“If they are, and if that was another player, she didn’t seem friendly…does it matter if they experience it the way we do?”

“Probably not, unless we can find one sympathetic to the cause of getting out of here. But where would they be? Maybe they don’t start as released prisoners?”

Flor reflected before answering. “That would explain maybe why we haven’t met others. Maybe they start at other locations on the island, like the farms, or elsewhere in the city that we haven’t checked. Should we seek them out?”

“I don’t think so. Being aware that they are out there is useful to know, and maybe if we eventually encounter one we can keep track of them, but we should guess that they likely switch skins just like we do.”

“Are there any other assumptions we need to consider?”

This time, he thought before answering, “I think we’re underpowered. It’s been, I’ve lost count, some four or six local days here. We have two recurring jobs that pay us forty coins each day, but we have a set amount of energy that we haven’t gotten close to using and a minimal amount of health that doesn’t allow us to be stabbed with a spear.”

“It’s wild to think that I was impaled a subjective thirty minutes ago.”

“I want to add an assumption that possible items persist even though the day counter doesn’t go forward. But that, maybe, common items like those knives we got off the thugs, are transient.”

“I’ve got no argument with that as an assumption. So, now what?”

“Yes. Now what…I think our objective might be to stop either the mayor or the lord.”

“Why do you suspect the lord?”

“Remember the other day when we were on a search party and walking toward the farms? We heard some yelling about a monster at the keep.”

“Oh, yeah. I must have forgotten about that.”

“Yeah, so maybe the mayor is a mid-boss and the lord is the final boss. It’s a working theory.”

“Does that mean that if we started in a different location, such as the farms, there would also be a mid-boss there? Is that what the other players have to contend with? Mad cows?”

Alastair laughed. “Yeah, okay. I said it was a working theory.”

“So, let’s figure out how to power grind. Get some persistent items that make us more powerful. Then take on the city’s mayor. We can be back at the Winchester for a pint by dinner.” {To roughly paraphrase Shawn of the Dead. }

“Yeah, okay. You’re right. I have no idea how to pull this off. I have no idea where to get persistent items, or if they even exist. I’m not even sure if this is a red herring of an objective. But without some sort of goal, I think we’ll keep bouncing around without accomplishing anything.”

“It’s time for a montage!” {Please, no!}

“So, how about we sleep on it? We technically didn’t sleep last night. We can consider the way forward after.”

“Yeah, it might be nice to sleep off the persistent feeling of a spear in my back. I’ll request a room from Horace.